AN ANTI-WHALING group says it has proof the Japanese whaling fleet has been operating in the historic heart of Australian Antarctica, Commonwealth Bay.

The Sea Shepherd group's leader, Paul Watson, said a helicopter found the factory ship Nisshin Maru in the bay shortly before he first engaged the fleet at the weekend.

Commonwealth Bay, due south of Tasmania, was the stopping-off point for early Australian expeditions by Douglas Mawson, which led the country to claim 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent, and declare a whale sanctuary off its shores.

A volunteer Australian expedition arrived there on Sunday to continue conservation work on the oldest Australian site in Antarctica, the National Heritage-listed Mawson's Huts.. . . more

A hardline environmentalist group chasing Japanese whalers near Antarctica said on Saturday it would do its utmost to disrupt the hunt although bad weather had thwarted a stink bomb attack on one vessel.

Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, told Reuters by telephone that the group's ship, the Steve Irwin, would keep pursuing the whalers once the weather improved.

"They are on the run but right now it is very bad weather," he said from the Steve Irwin, adding it was the earliest in the whaling season his group had ever found the Japanese fleet.

"That means we are going to cut into their profits. When they are running they are not killing whales." . . . more

Speaking dockside in Hobart today, the head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society accused the federal government of abandoning the cause and engaging in the pretty harassment of him and fellow activists.

"We're not going down there to protest whaling, we're going down there to intervene, to uphold the law, to stop them from whaling," he said.

"The key to success is economics, we've got to make sure that their losses are greater than their profits every year.

"For the last three years they haven't made a profit. We're going to make it a fourth and if we have to make it a fifth we're going to keep doing it. We're never going to retreat from this. We're going to drive them economically.

"Our goal is to sink the Japanese whaling fleet economically." . . . more

The only protest vessel set to disrupt Japan's annual whale hunt in Antarctic waters has arrived in Newcastle, with crew expecting an even tougher confrontation than last year.

Stopping for fuel and oil, Canadian captain Paul Watson said the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's vessel, the Steve Irwin, would head off to harass a fleet of eight Japanese whaling ships in the Southern Ocean late on Saturday night.

Captain Watson said he was expecting more heated scenes than he experienced a year ago, when two Sea Shepherd activists claimed they were mistreated by Japanese whalers after they boarded a harpoon boat to deliver an anti-whaling letter.

After the pair was released, anti-whaling activists admitted to having thrown about 12 stink bombs at a Japanese whaling ship. "As soon as we catch up with them (Japanese whalers) I'm sure there will be a confrontation with them," Captain Watson told AAP. . . more

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's flagship vessel departed Thursday from Brisbane with Hollywood actress Daryl Hannah on board for the hardline antiwhaling group's annual campaign to disrupt Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Ocean.

Hannah, who starred in the 1980s films "Blade Runner" and "Splash," will travel on the ship, the Steve Irwin, for one week to raise awareness of the need for joint action by conservation groups and governments to stop the killing of whales.

"They (the Japanese) are hunting endangered species in a marine protected area," the Australian Associated Press quoted Hannah as saying.

"It is surprising and shocking to me that governments are not doing this work - that it is up to individuals and nongovernment organizations to uphold international law and protect endangered species," she said.

Hannah joins skipper Paul Watson and some 42 international volunteers as they embark on Operation Musashi, named after legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi, which aims to "negate the illegal profits from whaling."

Watson said he expects this year's clash with the whalers could be more violent than in the past because the whalers are becoming increasingly frustrated by disruptions to their quota. . . more

A radical conservationist said Wednesday he will not shy away from violent confrontation with Japanese whalers, even though his group will be alone in tracking this season's hunt in the remote, ice-strewn Antarctic Ocean.

Environmentalists Greenpeace and the Australian government have ruled out sending ships to shadow the whaling fleet again, and renegade activist Paul Watson said his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society stands alone in defense of the whales.

"Japan's been putting a terrific amount of pressure on everyone. We just haven't buckled," the Canadian told The Associated Press by telephone from the Australian east coast city of Brisbane.

Watson, a Canadian who has boasted about ramming whaling ships to save the marine mammals, said his crew would not use tactics that endanger life in the remote and treacherous southern seas, but that he expected the whalers to be on the offensive. Sea Shepherd activists have disrupted the annual hunt for the past three years, causing economic losses for the fleet, he said.

"They'll most likely be more aggressive toward us this year than last year," Watson said . . . more

Anti-whaling campaigners say they are bracing for their most violent confrontation yet as the Japanese whaling fleet gets set to begin its annual harvest of the southern ocean.

Sailing out of Brisbane tomorrow will be the Steve Irwin, the flagship of the only international protest group to attempt to interrupt the Japanese within the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary - the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The Japanese fleet, run by the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), set sail from the port of Innoshima near Hiroshima last week.

Captain of the Steve Irwin, Paul Watson said he believed this year's confrontation with the whalers would be more violent than in previous years as a Japanese coast guard vessel was possibly travelling with the whaling flotilla.

"We believe the Japanese will be more aggressive and more violent than last year because they are getting desperate but we feel we have to take these risks to keep the pressure on," Captain Watson told brisbanetimes.com.au.

"We don't care if they send the whole damn Japanese navy there it is not going to stop us . . . more

OTTAWA - The head of the anti-sealing group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is shrugging off a statement of claim filed last week by the federal Fisheries Department against one of his vessels.

The department wants to recover $487,000 in costs to maintain the Farley Mowat since it was seized last April during the annual hunt.

Paul Watson says good luck.

"The longer they hold it the more it's going to cost (them), because they're not going to get a dime out of us. No matter what kind of statement of claim they file," Watson said Saturday from Perth, Australia where he is preparing for the group's anti-whaling campaign.

Quietly, without the usual bon voyage fanfare and Buddhist blessings, a Japanese whaling ship set sail this week on its yearly hunt for the great whales of the Southern Ocean. If the hunting is good, the ship, Nisshin Maru, will haul in more than 1,000 whales.

Meanwhile, at the Rivergate Marina in Brisbane, Australia, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is preparing its own ship, the Steve Irwin, for its annual oceangoing battle with the Japanese whaler.

Past confrontations have been dramatic, dangerous, even violent. There have been collisions and rammings, forced boardings, the fouling of propellers, the firing of stink bombs and stun grenades, even allegations of gunplay.

Sea Shepherd, with a crew that includes the American actress Daryl Hannah, promises big surprises and new tactics for the Japanese fleet. But the group whose members have been labeled eco-terrorists will not have any backup this year: For the first time in four years, Greenpeace is not sending a ship to help harass the whalers.. . . more

Japan has no plans to scale down its upcoming whale hunt in the Antarctic Ocean despite protests from abroad and slumping demand for whale meat at home, an official said Thursday.

Japan's whaling fleet, which is set to leave for its annual hunt within days, will catch up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales as planned, the Fisheries Agency said.

The ministry denied a report in the major newspaper Asahi that Japan would slash the number of minke whales it would kill in the Antarctic by about 20 percent in light of international protests and a declining appetite for whale meat at home.

"There is no change to our plans," ministry official Toshinori Uoya said. "We are going ahead with the planned catch." . . . more

The founder of the Sea Shepherd Society has criticised the Rudd government as being weaker than the previous Liberal government when it comes to Japanese whalers.

Captain Paul Watson arrived in Brisbane from Washington as the Sea Shepherd prepares its flagship vessel, the Steve Irwin, to intercept Japanese whaling boats in the Southern Ocean next month.

"I'm really upset with this government because they have reneged on every single promise they have made to protect the whales," Capt Watson told AAP.

"They (Japanese whalers) are killing whales in the Australian Antarctic Territory ... if you go to the charts it says 'Australian Antarctic Exclusion Zones'.

"Australia has claimed sovereignty over that area. They passed a federal government court order saying that Japan cannot whale in that area.

"Japan ignores them and Australia does nothing."

He said Australia had the power to shut Japan out.

"There's a lack of political and economic will and what is really bad is that this government came into power on a promise to get tough and they have reneged on it and in my opinion the former government is much tougher than this one," he said. . . . more

Australia's government is unlikely to send ships to monitor Japanese whaling in the Antarctic this season, lawmakers said Tuesday, after clashes with activists last year led to a diplomatic protest from Tokyo.

Canberra last year sent a customs and fisheries icebreaker to shadow anti-whaling activists and the Japanese fleet, gathering photo evidence of the yearly research hunt for a possible international legal case against Tokyo.

But after high-seas clashes between the whalers and activists in the frigid Southern Ocean, the brief detention of activists on a whale hunting ship and diplomatic protests from Japan, Environment Minister Peter Garrett would not promise a repeat.

"The Japanese whaling fleet is expected to launch within the next month, yet still the government refuses to take any active steps to prevent this annual slaughter," Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert told reporters. . . . more

Members of a hardline conservation group visiting the UAE have hit out at the capture of a whale shark and also criticised the decision to integrate different species of shark together in Dubai Mall's aquarium.The Sea Shepherd activists are outraged that a whale shark is still in captivity at Atlantis and believe a release date should be announced immediately - to stop the creature from suffering further psychological damage.

They are also concerned that four different species of shark have been homed together at Dubai Mall's new aquarium, and say the animals could attack each other.

Steve Roest, UK director for Sea Shepherd, told 7DAYS: "The psychological stress on the whale shark is enormous. "We are pushing for a release date and that needs to be soon.

"Whale sharks travel for thousands of miles and are guided by ocean currents so to be kept in a tank must be stressful in a way we cannot comprehend.. . . more

Resist the easy metaphor, you're taught in writing class, but sometimes you simply have to give in. Like now: "Whale Wars" splashes across the increasingly exhausted genre of people-at-work reality series like icy seawater, jolting you awake with a frothy, briny burst of - well, you get the idea. This is one spunky show.

"Whale Wars," which has its premiere Friday on Animal Planet, follows some nautical types as they go about their business, but these aren't mere ice-road truckers or sandhogs (to mention the subjects of two shows on the History Channel). They are, in the opinion of some of their detractors, eco-terrorists: a band of self-appointed warriors determined to stop the killing of whales . . . more

When I first saw the name "Whale Wars," I thought to myself, "this had better be about whales fighting each other. Then I saw the trailer and I was pretty impressed despite the fact that no whales fought one another.

Much more sadly and less whimsically, it's about whales unable to fight back against modern-day whalers. See, it's illegal to kill and catch whales for commercial purposes, but you can kill them for scientific research. So Japanese boats that claim to be doing this sort of research paint the word "RESEARCH" broadly across their boat, in English, and go about their day's work.

Well, some folks don't believe that all of the whaling being done out there is being done for research, and others still don't care one way or the other, they're just opposed to the killing of whales. Enter Sea Shepherd. This is an organization started by one of the rogue founders of Greenpeace, Paul Watson, who was actually booted from Greenpeace for his radical views.. . . more

The seven-episode series focuses on the eco-warriors of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on a three-month crusade against Japanese whalers on their annual hunt in the Antarctic Ocean.

Led by Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson under a Jolly Roger pirate flag, the 34-member group - mostly volunteers with little formal training or sea legs - sails aboard a converted patrol ship. They use stink bombs, ship boardings, electronic tracking devices and other subversive tools and tactics to thwart the harvesting of up to 1,000 whales.

Tonight's episode features the near-death experience of those on a capsized raft and the potential crash of the ship's helicopter. (Watson also rechristens the patrol ship the Steve Irwin, paying homage to the Crocodile Hunter.) . . . more

An anti-whaling group has vowed to go it alone in the battle to prevent Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean this season.

The pledge by Sea Shepherd comes after Greenpeace announced it would not be chasing a Japanese fleet when the whaling season begins shortly.

Greenpeace has said its top priority was defending two of the group's Japanese activists due to go on trial early next year on charges of stealing whale meat as part of its investigation into corruption.

The decision has upset Sea Shepherd president Captain Paul Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace.

"I am deeply offended that Greenpeace has been raising millions of dollars in the name of defending whales all year and now two weeks before the Japanese whaling fleet is scheduled to depart, they announce they will not be going," he said in a statement.

"In my opinion they collected funds under false pretences and now they have abandoned the whales. Shame onhem." . . . more

"You don't beg criminals to stop doing what they're doing. You intervene and you physically and aggressively shut them down," says Capt. Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the leader of this expedition . . . more

Animal rights activists vowed no let-up in their campaign to stop Japan's whaling as reports on Tuesday said Tokyo was seeking further arrests overseas of people who obstructed a hunt.

"We will not be deterred, we will not retreat and we will never surrender the lives of these defenceless whales to the outlaw whalers from Japan," said Paul Watson, captain of the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship.

Japanese police on Monday sent to Interpol the names of three members of the Sea Shepherd - two US citizens and a Briton - who are accused of disrupting the controversial whaling expedition in the Antarctic Ocean last year. . . . more

Police reportedly obtained arrest warrants Monday for two Americans and a Briton. Their crime? Harassing Japanese whaling ships.

ARREST TARGETS

The unidentified people are with the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an animal-rights group whose activists aim to disrupt Japan's annual whaling operations. The aim of the warrants, according to Kyodo News agency, was to place the three on an international wanted list.

1,000 WHALES A YEAR

Commercial whaling was banned by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. But Japan kills about 1,000 whales a year under an allowed scientific whaling program that Tokyo says provides crucial data for the commission on populations, feeding habits and distribution of the mammals in the seas near Antarctica. Sea Shepherd and other groups condemn it as a pretext for keeping commercial whaling alive.

Japanese police have sought arrest warrants for three anti-whaling activists after their heated clashes with Tokyo's whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean last year, the government said on Monday.

"It's natural to seek an arrest warrant after determining that there was a crime," Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference.

"No matter what you think about whaling, physical protests should be avoided."

Two Americans and a Briton from the hardline Sea Shepherd group are suspected of having obstructed Japan's whale hunt through protests such as jamming a ship's propeller with a rope, Kyodo news agency reported. . . . more

Paul Watson will do just about anything to prevent the killing of whales. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which he founded in 1979, has sunk eight whaling ships, rammed numerous others and seized more than 80 poaching vessels. Watson's "environmental navy" seeks to disrupt whalers from Japan, Norway and Iceland—among the few countries who still allow the practice under a global moratorium on hunts. The Canadian-born Watson, 57, was a cofounder of Greenpeace but left that organization in 1977 in a disagreement over the group's direction. NEWSWEEK correspondent Jimmy Langman caught up with the somewhat controversial Watson in Santiago, Chile, this week at the International Whaling Commission meeting. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What do you hope to achieve this week in Santiago?

Paul Watson:We are here in part to announce that we are launching our fifth Antarctica campaign, and in that we will take even a much more aggressive stand. I think the key to ending whaling is to keep their losses up over their profits. In the last two years, we have cost them about $70 million, so we just have to keep that up.

Canada fumbled its chance to prove once and for all that its critics are wrong in asserting that the seal hunt is cruel and inhumane, Europe's environment czar said Thursday.

European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the Canadian government, which complains that the EU is being manipulated by anti-sealing groups spreading misinformation, blocked a team of European experts sent on a fact-finding mission during the 2007 hunt.

"If a team of experts wasn't able to look at what is happening, and how it is being conducted, why do they (the Canadian government) claim that other evidence is not correct?" Dimas, in Paris to attend a major climate change conference, told Canwest News Service.

"I don't know whether it was bad faith. I don't think so. But the fact is they were prevented from doing what they were going to do."

The comment from Dimas, who said he will present legislation soon to ban all seal product imports into Europe, represented a two-pronged attack Thursday on the embattled Canadian industry . . . more

HIS ship flies a flag that looks suspiciously like the skull and crossbones. But Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an animal-welfare group known for its aggressive tactics, says it's the Canadian government that is guilty of piracy after a unit of the national police boarded and seized one of the society's ships off Canada's east coast on April 12th.

Just where the Farley Mowat, a Dutch-registered yacht being used by the society to protest against Canada's annual seal hunt, was at the time is in dispute. Mr Watson, who was not on board, claims the skirmish happened in international waters, making it an act of piracy. To make his point, he paid half the C$10,000 ($10,000) bail for its captain and first officer in C$2 coins, calling them dubloons. Loyola Hearn, the federal fisheries minister, insists that it was in Canadian waters, claiming that the “money-sucking manipulators” were endangering seal hunters on the ice floes.

The ship's GPS navigation unit, now in police hands, will eventually yield the truth. But Mr Watson and his group have already scored their public-relations coup. Videos of the seizure and arrests, interspersed with gory scenes of hunters clubbing seals to death, flooded television newscasts and sprouted on the internet. Many featured close-ups of cuddly, white-coated pups, although their killing has been banned since 1987.

This year's hunt for 275,000 harp seals and 8,200 hooded seals was supposed to be conducted under new, more humane rules aimed at making it more palatable to tender-hearted Europeans. That, however, now seems to be a lost cause; the EU is already considering a ban on all seal products from Canada. . . . more

A day after our post on Indonesia’s declaration of victory against pirates, environmentalists who cultivate their own pirate image were claiming a victory over Japan.

The Japanese whaling fleet returned after a 5-month hunt with only half of what they hoped to catch, ostensibly in the name of science, though the meat ends up in the market. But this was no unlucky-fisherman tale, as a Japanese official told CNN. “This year’s mission was disrupted intensively by Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, who use violent means for disturbance,” said Hajime Ishikawa, chief of Japan’s whaling mission.

A day later, the head of Shepherd, Paul Watson, sounded trumphant. “I think it is safe to say that the Sea Shepherd crew seriously affected their profits this season,” he said in a news release. “My crew and I are elated that 484 whales are now swimming free that would otherwise have been viciously slaughtered. And we are especially pleased that not a single Fin or Humpback died, and that is a complete victory.”

His deputy, Peter Hammarstedt, promised another round. “We hope to hurt them even harder next year,” he said. . . . more

Two European activists will be deported to their home countries Friday after being arrested earlier this week and jailed for allegedly getting too close to the seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, one of the protesters said Wednesday.

"I'm still a bit shocked by the whole sort of ordeal," said Peter Hammarstedt, 23, the first officer of the anti-sealing vessel, the Farley Mowat. "Once again the thing we're being accused of doing is allegedly being within a half a nautical mile of someone skinning a seal alive and for that Canada deports us."

"Not only that but they storm our ship with pretty much SWAT team storm troopers on international waters, force us into this country at gunpoint, then force us back out."Society, Alexander Cornelissen (R), Captain of the Farley Mowat, and First Officer Peter Hammarstedt leave the Cape Breton correctional facility in Reserve Mines, Nova Scotia, April 14, 2008, after Cornelissen and Hammarstedt were released on bail.

Hammarstedt is a Swedish national and Alexander Cornelissen, of Amsterdam, is the captain of the Farley Mowat. Last week, the ship was carrying 17 members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The group, whose head office is in Washington, D.C., maintains it was in international waters legally observing Canada's seal hunt.

However, the two men were arrested and appeared in a Sydney, N.S., courtroom on Monday on charges of approaching within one-half nautical mile of a seal hunt without a permit. . . . more

The war of words over the seizure of the anti-sealing vessel Farley Mowat continued Monday, with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson vowing that the end is near for the Canadian seal hunt.

Mr. Watson, who is in Sydney to bail two crew members out of jail, told CTV News that his team has footage of seals screaming while being skinned alive that will be used to help end the hunt.

“We haven't seen any evidence of a humane hunt here,” Mr. Watson said. “We're presenting this evidence to the European Parliament. They are going to pass a bill to ban seal products. That will end the Canadian seal hunt. We're looking at the end of days for the seal hunt.”

Author Farley Mowat donated the $10,000 needed to bail the ship's captain and first officer out of jail, Mr. Watson said. . . . more

Good news. Thick ice is slowing sealing boats from reaching the baby harp seals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, reports Planet Ark. Consequently, only three pups out of a quota of 275,000 were killed the first day. This after last year's "hunt" was affected by a lack of ice. The Canadian government has promised the slaughter will be more humane this year. How? After a hunter shoots or clubs a seal, he now must check its eyes to ensure it is dead, and if not, the animal's main arteries must be cut.

Okay, let's get clear about this. That does not qualify as humane.

The Canadian seal hunt is the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals on Earth, according to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Just what are they doing with all those dead baby seals? The furs are made into coats and clothes. And there's a growing market for seal oil, high in omega-3 fatty acid… and PCBs . . . more

The annual seal hunt that began in tragedy continued in controversy yesterday after an animal rights protest ship claimed a Coast Guard ship rammed it twice north of Cape Breton.

The high-seas skirmish, which was hotly denied by federal fisheries officials, comes on the heels of a rescue operation gone awry that cost the lives of four seal hunters over the weekend.

Yesterday, a seal boat captain who saw the crew of the ill-fated L'Acadien II pitched into the waters north of Cape Breton, provided a chilling account of the catastrophe.

Wayne Dickson, who was following in his own boat, recounted how he was racing to reach the capsized boat and tried to warn the crew of the Coast Guard icebreaker Sir William Alexander who were towing it.

"Stop the f------ boat! Stop! Stop! Stop! You're going to kill them f------ guys – their boat's upside down!" he shouted during an emotional interview with The Canadian Press yesterday as he recalled his frantic radio message to the icebreaker. "They were still dragging the boat through the water. But there was no response.". . . more

Always a tense time in Atlantic Canada, this year's seal hunt has proved no exception, with a conservation group clashing with the Canadian Coast Guard in the Gulf of St. Lawrence just three days into the annual seal hunt.

On Sunday, the coast guard icebreaker Des Groseilliers collided with the Farley Mowat, a ship owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon warned the militant group earlier in the month that the ship was believed to be in contravention of international maritime laws and should not enter Canadian waters.

But the ship came anyway, with the society claiming the Farley Mowat is a registered yacht and not subject to the same laws as commercial vessels. . . . more

A coast guard icebreaker and a ship owned by an activist conservation group collided off Canada's east coast as tensions mounted over the country's annual seal hunt.

A spokesman for Canada's federal fisheries department said Monday that the icebreaker was "grazed" twice Sunday by the Farley Mowat, a 177-foot vessel owned by the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

But the conservation group countered that its ship was rammed twice by the 321-foot icebreaker Des Groseilliers about 40 miles north of Cape Breton.

"It rammed the stern end of the Farley Mowat and when the Farley Mowat was stopped, it came back and hit them again," Paul Watson, head of the society, said from Los Angeles, California. "It was twice so it was intentional." . . . more

Despite a stern warning from Ottawa to steer clear of Canadian waters, animal rights activist Paul Watson is vowing to head to the ice floes in the Gulf of St. Lawrence next week to oppose the annual seal hunt.

Watson said Wednesday he and members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will sail into Canadian waters aboard the Farley Mowat to document the "perverse abomination" of the hunt from outside Canada's 12-mile territorial limit.

The commercial hunt is set to begin in the southern gulf Friday. A much larger hunt off Newfoundland and Labrador will open in April.

"We intend to document the killing of seals," he said from New York City.

"This is a Dutch vessel with an international crew and I think it will be an international incident if Canada tries to board a Dutch vessel in waters which are not within the 12-mile limit." . . . more

Aiming to show its hard edge, a network crew follows anti-whaling activists in 'Whale Wars.'

Animal Planet's desire to become less warm and fuzzy means exposure to some unaccustomed issues, like danger on the high seas and journalistic fairness.

A network crew returned to port in Australia last week after tagging along on a mission to interfere with a Japanese whaling expedition in the Antarctic. A miniseries about the experience, "Whale Wars," is expected to air this fall.

To make the series, Animal Planet worked with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, activists who are considered either heroic defenders of wildlife or dangerous meddlers, depending on your politics.

On this trip, the group tossed rancid butter on Japanese ships to make the decks slippery and to spoil whale meat, and diplomatic intervention was needed after two society members climbed aboard a Japanese ship.

"There is an inherent excitement in what they do," said Charlie Foley, Animal Planet's vice president of development. "It's always dangerous, and there are also questions about whether this is something they should be doing.

"It's not a prototypical Animal Planet story, and that's one of the reasons we were attracted to it." . . . more

For the first time since 2005, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is heading back to East Coast ice floes to monitor the annual seal hunt.

The animal rights organization's ship, the Farley Mowat, will leave Bermuda for the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Monday with an international crew of volunteers, founder Paul Watson says on the Sea Shepherd website.

The date for the hunt has not yet been set, but when it does begin, new rules will require sealers to ensure an animal is dead before it's bled out or skinned. If the seal is still alert, hunters will have to cut the main artery to ensure a quick death.

Watson derided the claim that the new rules make the hunt more "humane," and called it a glorified welfare scheme . . . more

After returning to Australia, anti-whaling protesters on board the Sea Shepherd's Steve Irwin are leaving to head up to Canada to join global protests against the annual seal hunt.

Canada has set a limit for its annual seal harvest this year of 275,000 harp seals, and announced new rules to make the slaughter less cruel as well as curb international protests over the hunt.

The quota includes allocations of 2,000 seals for personal use and almost 5,000 seals for aboriginal hunters, as well as 16,000 seals carried over from last year for commercial fleets that did not capture their 2007 quota, fisheries officials said today.

As well, Canada has adopted recommendations of the Independent Veterinarians Working Group to "ensure beyond any possible doubt that a seal is dead before it's skinned", said fisheries spokesman Phil Jenkins . . . more

He said the organic, non-toxic compounds made the deck foul-smelling and slippery, and it was impossible for any of the whalers to have been injured by the missiles. He challenged them to produce any video evidence to the contrary . . . more

The whale war in the Antarctic erupted again today when activists bombarded a Japanese vessel with foul-smelling stink bombs and a goo that made it difficult to walk on the decks.

The militants, on board the Sea Shepherd's anti-whaling ship Steve Irwin, hurled the bottles and packets containing foul-smelling and slippery substances onto the decks of the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru.

"I guess we can call this non-violent chemical warfare," said the Sea Shepherd's captain, Paul Watson, speaking from the Southern Ocean where clashes between militants and Japanese whaling ships have begun again with the return of the activists to Antarctica.

"We only use organic, non-toxic materials designed to harass and obstruct illegal whaling operations - and we know this latest attack has succeeded because the Japanese crew appeared to be hating the smell and having difficult negotiating their decks." . . . more

Anti-whaling protesters hurled containers of butyric acid at a Japanese whaling ship in Antarctic waters, injuring four crew members, a Japanese official said Monday.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society acknowledged the Sunday incident, saying it had lobbed more than two dozen bottles of rotten butter at the Nisshin Maru, 'sending a stench throughout the whale killing ship that will remain for days."

Butyric acid is found in rotten butter.

The Sea Shepherd boat had to move a half-mile away from the whaling ship because "it stinks too bad to remain any closer," activist Todd Emko of New York said in a statement from the group.

The conservation group said it also threw packets of a slippery chemical on to the deck of the ship, making it difficult to cut up whales.

The unnamed substance becomes more slippery when mixed with water so it will be difficult to wash off the deck, a Sea Shepherd statement said . . . more

AUSTRALIAN activists say they will board Japanese whaling ships, destroy equipment and make citizen's arrests fairly soon in the latest attempt to drive the hunters out of the Antarctic.

The captain of the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin, which made international headlines after two crew members were detained by the Japanese last month, says he has a team of 17 specially-trained crew members - nine of them Australian - ready to put their lives on the line.

Paul Watson told NEWS.com.au the group would risk being shot at to stop the killing of whales by "criminals" in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

He said the Japanese fleet was in "clear violation of an Australian (Federal) Court order prohibiting whaling operations inside the Australian Economic Exclusion Zone".

Crew members had been trained to board a whaling vessel, destroy hunting equipment and make citizen’s arrests of crew members, he said from on board the Steve Irwin . . . more

New pictures expose the gory reality of Japan's so-called 'scientific' whale hunt in the Southern Ocean, with a slaughtered adult minke whale and calf being hauled on board a Japanese factory ship.

The release of the photos marks a significant shift in whaling politics, for they were taken not by the environmental activists who spent much of January harassing the whalers on their Antarctic hunt but by officials working for the Australian government.

They were put into the public domain by the eco-friendly administration of the new Labor premier, Kevin Rudd, accompanied by withering comments from Australian ministers.

For a government to become so strongly involved raises the stakes considerably in a dispute in which most of the international community is ranged against Japan.

It provoked anger in Tokyo and a warning to Australia from a Japanese official that this was "dangerous emotional propaganda that could cause serious damage to the relationship between our two countries".

But there was as much, if not more fury, at the pictures in Australia. Peter Garrett, the Environment Minister, and a former member of the rock group Midnight Oil, said: "It is explicitly clear from these images that this is the indiscriminate killing of whales, where you have a whale and its calf killed in this way." He said he felt sick and sad looking at them and added: "To claim that this is in any way scientific is to continue the charade that has surrounded this issue from day one." . . . more

A WHALE-hunting season of high drama on the huge swells of the Great Southern Ocean has culminated in a precisely structured and exquisitely polite meeting of government ministers in Tokyo.

The water cannon, whale blood, stink bombs and yelled imprecations have been matched with the deep bows of Japanese diplomacy.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith met his Japanese counterpart, Masahiko Koumura, on Thursday night, and the vexed issue of whaling was high on the agenda.

The Japanese whaling fleet, hunting as many as 1000 of the giant mammals for scientific research, has been harassed and monstered by both Greenpeace and the vigilante conservationist group Sea Shepherd.

Yet as the protesters steamed back to Australia, at the very time Smith was meeting Koumura, the Japanese fleet began hunting again, harvesting as many as five minke whales.

Few environmental battles excite the emotions as much as the fight against whaling . . . more

Controversial activist group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has vowed to escalate its anti-whaling tactics after Japan resumed killing whales in the Southern Ocean.

The whalers halted the slaughter for nearly three weeks till Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace ships shadowing them were forced to return to Australia last week to refuel.

The resumption of whaling, confirmed by Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking, which is tailing the Japanese fleet, was greeted with sadness and anger on the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin.

Skipper Paul Watson is trying to raise nearly $200,000 to refuel the ship and hopes to leave Melbourne for another stint in the Antarctic by next week. Greenpeace will not return during this campaign . . . more

After spending its first 12 years of existence focused on more traditional wildlife observational programming, Animal Planet is relaunching and rebranding itself around a new more adult-targeted programming schedule that will include animal-themed reality shows and additional Meerkat Manor-like anthropomorphic series . . .

Militant environmental activists on Saturday vowed to increase their presence in the Southern Ocean next year in their bid to prevent Japanese whalers from killing the giant mammals.

Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel the Steve Irwin, said his ship had stopped the Japanese fleet from killing whales for three to four weeks but was now forced to return to port to refuel.

Next year he wants to bring two ships into the Antarctic waters.

"We're aiming to come back next year with two ships which will be staggered, so they'll work as a tag team -- once one ship returns to port to refuel, the other ship can be out chasing the fleet," he said.

"The best way to stop their criminal action -- because that's what this senseless slaughter is, criminal -- is to keep on them. It's going to be very expensive but it will be worth it" . . . more

THE captain of an anti-whaling ship that docked in Melbourne yesterday wants to increase the number of activist ships tailing Japanese whaling boats.

Captain Paul Watson and his crew on the Steve Irwin received a heroes" welcome from families, friends and activists gathered at Melbourne's Docklands. More than 100 people cheered, waved and whistled as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ship sailed into Victoria Harbour about 2.30pm yesterday . . . more

The two Sea Shepherd activists who were held captive on a Japanese whaling boat for three days plan to go back to sea as soon as possible.

The Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin has arrived at Victoria Harbour in Melbourne to refuel, restock and make some minor repairs.

About 100 people welcomed the vessel back to Melbourne after its campaign against Japanese whalers.

Australian Benjamin Potts, who was held by the Japanese, says he and the other captive, Briton Giles Lane, are ready to go back despite the experience of being tied to the side of the Japanese boat . . . more

THE Southern Ocean is usually one of the world's loneliest shipping lanes. This month it has turned into an unseemly battleground over a bid by Australia's government and various environmental groups to stop Japan hunting and slaughtering whales. Japan aims to kill more than 900 minke and 50 fin whales from a region bordering Antarctica by mid-April. It claims the hunt is for scientific research; its critics say this is a brazen front for a commercial whale-meat harvest. As images of the protesters" antics inflame anti-Japanese feeling in Australia, the clash is also threatening the stability of one of Australia's strongest regional ties.

On January 22nd Greenpeace, an environmental-lobbying group, wedged a small inflatable craft between the Nisshin Maru, the Japanese fleet's factory ship, and its refuelling vessel. It managed to delay, but not stop, the operation. This was a minor episode compared with a manoeuvre a week earlier by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-whaling body. Two protesters boarded one of the Japanese whaling vessels to deliver a letter demanding that the harpooning stop and, say the Japanese, splashed acid about.

They were detained on the Japanese ship, grabbing headlines worldwide, until an Australian patrol boat returned them to their own ship three days later. More protests seem likely. Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd ship tracking the whalers, says he is prepared to keep up the chase for weeks. He painted Greenpeace as timid for its failure to prevent refuelling: "Of course it's dangerous. Stopping the whaling fleet is not a game." . . . more

I am a huge fan of Japan, and have travelled there many times. I eat sashimi, I watch sumo, and I'm regularly mocked by my friends for pronouncing karaoke correctly. But there is one element of Japanese culture that leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and that's whaling. I have to admit, I've never tried whale meat – sorry, I mean, never conducted valuable primary whale research – so I don't know what I'm missing. But then again, I've never eaten human either, for similar moral reasons.

And what's more, the vast majority of Japanese people have never eaten whale either. According to an Asahi Shimbun survey from 2002, 96 per cent of Japanese have never eaten or rarely eat whale. And despite the protestations that it's a vitally important part of their culture, the lack of consumption has resulted in a substantial stockpile. And as a result a lot of the whale meat has started to be used for dog food. The Japanese Government has launched a campaign to try and encourage people to eat it, with a pamphlet series amusingly entitled Scrumptious Whale Meat!, but it's failing. And no surprise – why bother with boring old whale meat when you now have universal access to the Teriyaki McBurger?

Kazuo Shima, Japan's former delegate to the International Whaling Commission was quoted in the SMH on Saturday as saying that the West had tried to turn the whale into the equivalent of a sacred cow. He's spot on. We want whales to be inviolate because many species are endangered, and the harpooning process is inherently cruel, resulting in a painful death. And we shouldn't apologise for that. There are times when it's important to maintain cultural relativism, and respect different countries" right to devise their own norms, but there are times when, frankly, one particular set of values is purely and simply better – in the case of the death penalty, for instance. Whaling, similarly, is one practice that simply shouldn't be tolerated . . . more

Paul Watson has been engaging in acts of derring-do on behalf of the animal kingdom for more than 30 years.

In the early 1970s, not long after he co-founded the Greenpeace environmental movement, the Canadian was among a small group of activists who took to the seas off California to try to stop a Soviet fleet from killing whales.

Watson - Greenpeace membership number: 007 - was steering a small, fast, inflatable Zodiac speedboat. His aim was to position himself between the whales and the Soviet harpoons. The whalers had already opened fire on a passing pod of whales, and at one point an injured sperm whale broke away from the group. It headed straight for Watson’s boat.

As Watson heaved on his rudder, the whale passed a few feet away, its eye clear of the water. It seemed to be staring directly at the men who were trying to save it. Watson has never forgotten that moment.

“"In an instant my life was transformed and a purpose for my life was reverently established,"” said the man who would later fall out with Greenpeace and found one of the world’s most aggressive environmental groups, the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society . . . more

They were pirates to some, hostages to others. But two anti-whaling activists who drew global attention this week by forcibly boarding a Japanese harpoon ship in Antarctic waters have demonstrated how the emotional clash over Japan's annual whale hunt can disrupt even the best international friendships.

The high seas showdown sent shudders through the Japanese and Australian governments, which have a close partnership on trade and security issues but find themselves on opposing sides of a whaling dispute in which middle ground is evaporating.

Alarmed officials in Tokyo and Canberra, the capitals, watched as this year's whale kill in the Southern Ocean near Australian waters took a nasty turn, with mutual accusations of racism and hypocrisy followed by the dangerous boarding of the Japanese whaler by eco-vigilantes . . . more

A tense standoff in frigid Antarctic waters ended Friday when two activists who had jumped on board a Japanese whaling boat were returned to their ship by Australian officials.

Their return paved the way for the Japanese fleet to resume killing whales, and for their staunchest opponents to restart their campaign of harassment to stop them.

Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said the two crew members were safely back on board the group's ship, the Steve Irwin.

Earlier Friday, an Australian customs ship picked up the two activists — Australian Benjamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — who prompted the faceoff when they leaped from a rubber boat onto the deck of the Japanese ship Yushin Maru 2 on Tuesday.

The dispute underscored the high-stakes nature of the contest fought each year in the remote and dangerous seas at the far south of the world, thousands of miles from the possibility of regular emergency or rescue services.

At issue is Japan's foray into the Antarctica in November under a program that allows the killing of minke and fin whales for scientific research, despite an international ban on commercial whaling. Opponents say Japan has used the loophole to kill nearly 10,000 whales over the past two decades and sell their meat on the commercial market . . . more

Yesterday evening a nautical drama was being played out between seven ships deep in the heaving, wild and normally extremely lonely Southern Ocean on the edge of Antarctica. The Nisshin Maru, a large Japanese whaling factory ship, was steaming due south at 15 knots in heavy seas with a crew of 80 and with the carcasses of possibly 50 whales aboard.

Two miles behind it, in full sight but not in radio contact, was the Esperanza, a Greenpeace vessel converted from a Russian navy fire-fighting ship with a volunteer crew of 21 nationalities and a Dutch captain. The Esperanza is well equipped, as you would expect from a large and well-resourced operation with more than 200,000 members, but it looks tiny beside the vast whaling vessel.

Steaming towards both ships, and due to meet them in possibly a day or two among the icebergs and the fogs, is the MV Steve Irwin, the black-painted flagship of Captain Paul Watson and the California-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the world's most uncompromising environmental enforcement group. His crew is smaller, but - like that of the Esperanza - made up of brilliant and committed seamen. Discipline is everything at sea and both sets of volunteers, male and female and drawn from just about every country, respond magnificently to the challenge and the danger . . . more

Protesters scored a victory in a high-seas campaign to disrupt Japan's whale hunt in the Antarctic, forcing the fleet to a standstill Wednesday while officials scrambled to unload two activists who used a rubber boat to get on board a harpoon vessel.

The faceoff was a rapid escalation of the annual contest between the fleet that carries out Japan's controversial whale hunt in southern waters and the environmentalist groups that try to stop it.

The founder of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group, Paul Watson, told The Associated Press by satellite phone that the Japanese are targeting vulnerable whale stocks and said his organization will keep harassing the fleet.

"We will chase them until they stop their hunt," Watson said from the bridge of the Steve Irwin, a Sea Shepherd vessel. "As long as we are chasing them, they aren't killing whales" . . . more

CONSERVATION group Sea Shepherd says it will launch its own agressive rescue of two activists detained on a Japanese whaling ship if it has to.

The activists boarded the Japanese harpoon vessel Yushin Maru No. 2 in Antarctic waters yesterday afternoon to deliver a written plea to stop killing whales.

A witness said the pair, from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessel Steve Irwin, was tied to the rails of the ship and immersed up to their waists in freezing seawater after an attempt to throw one overboard.

Sea Shepherd has vowed to stop the activities of Japanese whalers, who it says are hunting the animals for research purposes.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said today that Japan had agreed to release the pair; Benjamin Potts, 28, of Sydney, and Giles Lane, 35, from Britain.

But Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson, the captain of the Steve Irwin, said today he had not been told by authorities in either Japan or Australia that his crew would be returned . . . more

Greenpeace has claimed a new success in its Southern Ocean pursuit of the Japanese whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru, forcing it to steam out of its whaling grounds.

The pursuit ran on last night, with Nisshin Maru showing no signs of slowing as it steamed north, away from the whalers" designated research area off the Antarctic coast . . .

. . . "We have reached the place where the Nisshin Maru was only hours ago," Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson said. "We are on their trail and will continue to pursue as they continue to run."

Greenpeace has refused to release its position, but Captain Watson said the fleet was located in the Co-operation Sea, about 4500 kilometres south-west of Perth. The Australian Government's customs patrol ship Oceanic Viking was still potentially a few days" steaming from the Nisshin Maru, but the factory ship's course was likely to bring it closer to contact . . . more

Stranded polar bears, melting glaciers, dried-out rivers and flooding on a horrific scale - these were the iconic images of 2007. So who is most able to stop this destruction to our world? A Guardian panel, taking nominations from key environmental figures, met to compile a list of our ultimate green heroes . . .

. . . who are the people who can bring about change, the pioneers coming up with radical solutions? We can modify our lifestyles, but that will never be enough. Who are the politicians most able to force society and industry to do things differently? Where are the green shoots that will get us out of the global ecological mess? . . . more

THE anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd has condemned the Federal Government's decision to keep the location of the Japanese whaling fleet secret.

The move was a betrayal that would withhold vital information from anti-whaling groups, Paul Watson, of Sea Shepherd, said.

"Once again the cards are stacked against us, as governments continue to co-operate with each other to maintain the status quo," he said, adding the Government owed it to the Australian public to say where the fleet was.

The information would greatly assist the search for the whalers now under way by Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace protest ships over an ocean area more than 7000 kilometres wide . . . more

2007 Archive

WITHIN a week, anti-whaling boat the Steve Irwin hopes to be harassing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean.

But yesterday it made an unscheduled appearance at Victoria Harbour at Docklands to replace pistons and take on fuel.

Since leaving Melbourne on December 5, the Steve Irwin and its 41-strong crew from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have fruitlessly searched the Southern Ocean for the whalers.

Captain Paul Watson is confident he will find the Japanese this time around, with the boat likely to leave Melbourne today, leaving behind a couple of crew who suffered from seasickness.

He said that this year the Japanese had started whaling in a different area, 3000 kilometres from where the Steve Irwin had been searching. We didn't find that out until recently.

But now that the general location of the Japanese is known, he hopes to disrupt the planned slaughter of about 1000 whales. "If we catch them they'll run from us," Captain Watson said. "We'll just keep them on the run" . . . more

The widow of TV wildlife entertainer Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin will launch a nonlethal whale research program in Antarctic waters next year to prove that Japan's scientific whaling cull is a sham.

Terri Irwin has announced that the whale watching program she started to honor her late husband, who died in a stingray attack off Australia's Great Barrier Reef in September 2006, would expand into scientific research.

"We are working with Oregon State University to do formalized research in the southern hemisphere," said Irwin, who is from Eugene. "We can actually learn everything the Japanese are learning with lethal research by using non-lethal research."

The Newport-based Marine Mammal Institute at OSU will begin studies in the southern and northern hemispheres on a variety of whale species to improve information on their habitats and stock identity, which could eliminate the need for killing whales solely for gathering research data . . . more

CANBERRA - Australia will send a fisheries patrol ship to shadow Japan's whaling fleet near Antarctica and gather evidence for a possible international court challenge aimed at halting the yearly slaughter.

The icebreaker Oceanic Viking, used for customs and fisheries policing, will leave for the Southern Ocean in days to follow the Japanese fleet, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and Environment Minister Peter Garrett said yesterday.

The decision risks antagonizing Japan's government, which says it will not tolerate interference in the 'scientific" whaling expedition. Japan says the program is necessary to prove that cetacean populations have recovered sufficiently to allow a return to commercial whaling, banned internationally since 1986.

"One of the few issues on which we fundamentally disagree is Japan's policy of undertaking so-called 'scientific whaling" in the face of widespread opposition from the Australian and international community," said a statement from the ministers.

"Australia is determined to play a leading role in international efforts to stop Japan's whaling practices" . . . more

Thousands of kilometres from the hot Queensland summer a group of the state's frontline animal warriors are in the depths of the Southern Ocean, sailing into battle against the annual Japanese Whale slaughter.

Chantal Henderson, from Cotton Tree on the Sunshine Coast, is on board the flagship vessel of the Sea Sheppard Foundation which was recently renamed to honour Steve Irwin.

"We're doing really well, the crew is in good spirits with the common goal is to stop the slaughter of these whales," she said.

"Being Antarctica it's pretty cold down here but I went out before on the zodiac and it wasn't too bad - but there are icebergs around so it is definitely a bit chilly."

Ms Henderson joined the 41-member crew of the Steve Irwin as the official photographer for the Sea Sheppard Foundation, recording some of the images that will be used as evidence against Japan in a planned International Court case next year . . . more

It's easy to like Paul Watson. The teddy-bear-faced 57-year-old has a sea dog's shock of white hair and walrus moustache, a rebel leader's expansive charisma and a poet-cum-PR guru's genius for spin. He is the most affable zealot. He is also at war with most of humankind.

Born and raised in Canada, Watson now has a place in Washington, but the ocean is his real home. He heads the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the vigilante marine conservation organisation he founded 30 years ago after he was expelled from Greenpeace, which he also co-founded, for being too confrontational towards sealers.

He calls his fleet, which includes three ships, Neptune's Navy. This navy's ultimate enemy is anyone who pillages nature - which, in Watson's eyes, implicates humans" numerous destructive habits and appetites.

But the immediate focus is enforcing the flimsy conventions and laws in place to protect endangered marine life . . . more

December 14, 2007 -- The Australian - Sydney, Australiaonline/print news

AUSTRALIA is developing plans to monitor Japanese whaling in order to mount international legal action over the controversial Antarctic hunt.

It has also reversed previous government policy and will back a long-running Federal Court case against the hunt.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government was considering the best way to collect data to help in a legal case against the fleet.

But with the whaling about to begin, including a 'research" kill of humpback whales that migrate along the Australian coast, anti-whaling groups are calling for urgent diplomatic action.

The Rudd Government went to the election promising to step up pressure over whaling, but has so far declined to spell out its plans. Minister for Defence Joel Fitzgibbon and Attorney-General Robert McClelland have taken advice on how to deal with the whalers . . . more

This morning, in the grey swells of the Southern Ocean, a pirate ship will enter the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territory. It is a black ship, bearing a black pirate flag, the Jolly Roger. For the past five days it has sailed south, so that it can take position and wait for its prey.

The prey is expected to arrive on Saturday, the day when Japanese whaling ships, operating under the patronage of the Japanese Government, are scheduled to begin hunting minke whales, humpbacks and fin whales in southern waters. This is an area where Australia has declared an exclusive economic zone extending 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from the Antarctic coastline in a large swath of Antarctic waters. This is prime whale territory.

Yet the only intimidating presence that stands between the whaling ships and the slaughter of more than a thousand whales - the Japanese have set themselves a quota of 1030 - will be a private ship sailing under a Jolly Roger on which the crossed bones have been replaced by a trident and a shepherd's crook. The shepherd's crook signifies that this ship is operated by Sea Shepherd, the environmental vigilante of the sea . . . more

Terri Irwin has granted the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society permission to rename its ship currently known as Robert Hunter in honour of her late husband, Steve Irwin.

Captain Paul Watson, founder and president of Sea Shepherd and Terri Irwin officially announced the new name for the ship Steve Irwin at a press conference at 12:00 on December 5th at Victoria Docklands in Melbourne, Australia.

Sea Shepherd said they were proud to partner with Terri Irwin to launch Operation Migaloo as she and Steve have been world renowned for their conservation work. Terri knows that Steve would have been extremely honoured to be acknowledged in this way as he shared Sea Shepherd's passion for saving whales . . . more

December 6, 2007 -- Kiwi FM -- Auckland, New Zealandradio news

Listen to Captain Paul Watson’s first radio interview from the Operation Migaloo campaign! The interview is with Wallace Chapman from Kiwi FM in Auckland, NZ interviewing Captain Watson en route to the Southern Ocean on reasons for naming the ship after Steve Irwin and the Operation Migaloo campaign. (Website: www.kiwifm.co.nz)

TERRI Irwin is awaiting the day she reads the headline 'steve Irwin stops whaling vessel".

And it may happen sooner than later as the Crocodile Hunter's widow yesterday unveiled a new moniker for an anti-whaling ship owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The newly christened Steve Irwin, formerly the Robert Hunter, left Melbourne yesterday bound for Antarctic waters where its crew will attempt to stop Japan's so-called scientific whaling.

With a crew of 41, including 12 Australians, the ship will spend about two months in the Southern Ocean pursuing Japanese whalers, who plan to take 935 minke whales, 50 endangered humpbacks and 50 endangered fin whales.

Controversial anti-whaling group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has swapped the name of Greenpeace co-founder Robert Hunter for the Crocodile Hunter on its front-line campaign ship.

Sailing as the Robert Hunter, the Sea Shepherd ship made international headlines in February when it collided with Japanese whaling ship Kaiko Maru in sub-Antarctic waters south-west of Australia.

The ship has since been repaired and at midday today was re-named the Steve Irwin in the presence of his widow, Terri, who is in Melbourne to launch the anti-whaling campaign Operation Migaloo for the Sea Shepherd society. The ship is berthed on the North Wharf side of Victoria Harbour, at the Docklands . . . more

A conservation group that has vowed to disrupt Japan's annual whale hunt launched its Antarctic campaign Wednesday by renaming one of its ships after "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, the late environmental campaigner.

The U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says it will use whatever means necessary to block Japan from harvesting up to 50 humpbacks, 935 minkes and 50 fin whales in Antarctic waters as part of an oceanic research program that critics decry as commercial whaling in disguise.

Irwin's widow, Terri, threw her support behind the mission by giving Sea Shepherd permission to rename one of its two flagship vessels after her husband, the TV wildlife program host who died from a stingray attack off Australia's Great Barrier Reef in September 2006.

"Whales have always been in Steve's heart, and in 2006 he was investigating the possibility of joining the Sea Shepherd on part of its journey to defend these beautiful animals," Terri Irwin said in a statement . . . more

One of the first decisions of the new Labor Government when it meets tomorrow will be how to fulfil its election promise to send the Australian Navy south to monitor Japanese whale hunters.

Incoming environment minister Peter Garrett will raise the issue when cabinet holds its first meeting tomorrow after being sworn in by Governor-General Michael Jeffery.

During the election campaign Labor pledged to send the navy or long-range aircraft to gather evidence against Japanese whale hunters in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary to use in court action.

"It will be one of the first things raised when cabinet meets," a spokesman for Mr Garrett said. "Using the navy is about heightening the pressure on Japan to stop killing whales."

Meanwhile two young Australians are prepared to risk their lives to stop the whale hunt when their anti-whaling ship leaves for the Southern Ocean on Wednesday.

Carly McDermott, 23, and Stephen Bennett, 24, are part of the 40 crew of the Robert Hunter flying the pirate skull and bones flag, which leaves Melbourne on Wednesday determined to battle the whale hunters . . . more

A hardline anti-whaling group yesterday urged Australia’s incoming Labour government to honour a campaign pledge to send in its navy to monitor Japan’s whaling fleet as it heads for Antarctic waters. Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson compared whaling to poaching elephants, as the group prepares to send its own ship to stop the Japanese plans to hunt around 1,000 whales.

"We’re hoping that the new Labour government will send Australian naval vessels down there to monitor their illegal activities,” Watson said. “Japan is targeting an endangered species in a whale sanctuary in violation of a global moratorium. That’s like poaching elephants for ivory. It’s a crime."

During the campaign for last Saturday’s election, the Labour Party of prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd vowed to use the navy to monitor Japan’s activities during the hunt. Japan’s whaling exploits a loophole in a 1986 moratorium on whaling that permits limited whaling for scientific purposes, although it is no secret that the meat ends up on supermarket shelves . . . more

It's a ritual that boils the blood of whale-watchers everywhere. On Nov. 18, a fleet of four Japanese vessels left Shimonoseki harbor in Western Japan to begin its five-month whale hunt in the Antarctic Ocean. This time, however, the whalers are planning what's expected to be its largest hunt in decades; along with about 850 minke and 50 finback whales, the fleet says it plans to harpoon as many as 50 humpback whales for the first time since hunting the endangered species was banned in 1963.

The escalation of the hunt, and the inclusion of humpbacks, has drawn condemnation from leading anti-whaling countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the U.S. JAPANESE WHALERS WON'T SAY IF THEY'll SPARE MIGALOO, screamed one Australian headline, referring to an albino humpback occasionally spotted off the Australian coast who has become a popular tourist attraction. With an upcoming general election, the issue has become heavily politicized in Australia; the opposition Labor party's campaign platform includes a proposal to mobilize military aircraft to monitor Japanese whaling fleets. But Japan has said it needs to recommence hunting one of conservationists" most beloved species to further marine research. "Whales are just as important, and no more special, than any other fish," says Japan Fisheries Agency spokesperson Hideki Moronuki, maintaining Japan's long-held position that marine mammals should get no special treatment for being warm-blooded. Japan maintains that with a population of around 40,000 growing at 15% a year, the formerly endangered humpback has recovered to a sustainable level for lethal research. Anti-whalers, on the other hand, simply see this as raw defiance. "They're just doing this to show us that they can," says Paul Watson, founder of the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society . . . more

As the Japanese harpooners set sail, their bitterest foes are also mobilising – and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will stop at nothing to protect the humpbacks.

Among the thousands of humpback whales that have begun making their way south towards the icy waters of the Antarctic's Southern Ocean this month is one of the world's most unusual and dazzling animals, a 40-tonne, bright white humpback known as Migaloo.

Believed to be the only entirely white humpback whale in the world, Migaloo, named after the Aboriginal word for White Fella, was first spotted breaching the ocean's surface in 1991 and has since become the most recognised member of one of Mother Nature's great migrations.

But this year Migaloo's journey home is nothing short of perilous. Tracking him and his family is Japan's internationally despised whaling fleet, a mechanised armada of death that has, for the first time in 40 years, vowed to bring back 50 harpooned humpbacks on top of their annual quota of more than 1,000 whales . . . more

A research ship planning to use controversial methods to combat global warming has docked in Bermuda — but its owners insisted last night that there were no plans for it to carry out experiments near the Island.

Weatherbird II, which arrived at St. George's on Saturday morning and is expected to stay for up to ten days, belongs to Planktos, a California-based company which intends to deposit iron particles in the sea in the hope that plankton blooms will form and absorb the carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming.

The for-profit organisation's experimental methods have been criticised by some marine scientists who claim iron fertilisation has the potential to damage marine environments and human health . . . more

New Zealand's new Conservation Minister has sent out a strongly worded message to Japan as the country prepares to hunt what is believed to be the world's rarest whale.

The world's only known white humpback whale could be slaughtered as Japan's whaling fleet prepares to embark on its annual hunt in the Southern Ocean, Australians fear. The unique male whale, named Migaloo - an Aboriginal word for "white fella" - has become a celebrity in Australia since being spotted in 1991.

Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick said New Zealand was strongly opposed to whaling and that Migaloo's death would be "very sad".

Each year, Migaloo and thousands of other humpbacks migrate from the seas of Antarctica to the warm shallows of the South Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef. A few months later the whales return to Antarctica . . . more

TONY EASTLEY: Japan is worried that its whaling fleet is going to be targeted by protesters on the high seas during its annual Southern Ocean hunt and it wants Australia and New Zealand to provide some protection.

Japan says its ships have been subject to terrorist-like action and says it's stepping up its own security for its crews.

But environmentalists say it's Japan that's been provoking confrontation, especially with its plans to kill up to 50 humpback whales this season.

One afternoon last winter, two ships lined up side by side in a field of pack ice at the mouth of the Ross Sea, off the coast of Antarctica. They belonged to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a vigilante organization founded by Paul Watson, thirty years ago, to protect the world’s marine life from the destructive habits and the voracious appetites of humankind. Watson and a crew of fifty-two volunteers had sailed the ships—the Farley Mowat, from Australia, and the Robert Hunter, from Scotland—to the Ross Sea with the intention of saving whales in one of their principal habitats. A century ago, when Ernest Shackleton and his crew sailed into the Ross Sea, they discovered so many whales “spouting all around” that they named part of it the Bay of Whales. (“A veritable playground for these monsters,” Shackleton wrote.) During much of the twentieth century, though, whales were intensively hunted in the area, and a Japanese fleet still sails into Antarctic waters every winter to catch minke whales and endangered fin whales. Watson believes in coercive conservation, and for several decades he has been using his private navy to ram whaling and fishing vessels on the high seas. Ramming is his signature tactic, and it is what he and his crew intended to do to the Japanese fleet, if they could find it. . . . more

There can be no doubt about it: Mr. Jack Ma is an extremely savvy businessman, and he deserves a web celebrity status for having created, and managed, Alibaba. Jack Ma was an English teacher before he started Alibaba on a shoe string in 1999. Now his firm, which employs more than 4,000 people, is going public, and will raise US$1.5 billion in what many call the most successful IPO in the history of the Hong Kong stock market.

Reports from Hong Kong indicate that the transaction is going to be a very profitable deal for both Mr. Ma and the new shareholders, some 80% of them corporate investors such as the US web giant Yahoo!, Cisco Systems, and AIG Global Investments.

This is all very exciting financial stuff… but - the new Alibaba stockholders and the media should also know this:

Alibaba is not only China’s biggest e-commerce firm but also the world’s largest online shark fin trader. While environmentalists, ocean lovers and a growing world-wide scuba diving community find this utterly scandalous, Yahoo! top managers don’t seem to mind. They already have a US$1 billion stake in Alibaba representing a 40% shareholding, and, as reported, will soon increase their investment in the Chinese internet company by another 8-10% . . . more

U.S. activists waging a high-profile campaign against Japan's annual dolphin slaughter and sale of mercury-tainted dolphin meat were snubbed by government officials Friday in Tokyo when they tried to hand over a petition of protest they claim bears 50,000 signatures.

Members of Washington state-based antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society — including well-known Hollywood actress and board member Persia White — said they had planned to hand over the petition at a scheduled meeting at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's food safety department, but police and guards barred their entry.

"We flew over 5,000 miles to be stood up," said White, who stars in the sitcom "Girlfriends." The activists also tried to meet with the Fisheries Agency but were met with rejection there, the group said . . . more

Call him dangerous or call him courageous. Just don't call him unwilling.

Paul Watson, the Ahab who scours the Southern Ocean for the Japanese whaling fleet, is girding for another attack - this time on behalf of a white whale.

This summer the Japanese fleet is to add Australian humpbacks to the hundreds of whales that it kills in the name of science and sells for meat.

Mr Watson, the president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has arrived in Tasmania to repair his ship for a campaign he calls Operation Migaloo after the alabaster humpback that migrates annually along the Australian east coast.

"I think we have to take a more aggressive position against [the whalers]," Mr Watson told the Herald.

"Because right now they have crossed the line into going after endangered species. That to me is no different from poaching elephants, or running drugs or robbing banks. These guys are criminals and should be dealt with as such." . . . more

It was about 6:30 on a beautiful summer morning, with gray whales all around, when Wayne Johnson decided he had waited long enough: It was time to hunt whales again.

Within minutes Saturday, Johnson and four other Makah tribal members were on the downtown dock at Neah Bay, boarding two motorized boats. By the end of the day, the men were in handcuffs and a whale was dead.

Sunday, even as tribal council members strongly denounced the hunt, Johnson said he had no regrets. "If anything, I wish I'd done it years earlier," he said.

The hunt started without a hitch: Less than a mile out, the men spotted a gray whale. But Johnson, 54, and the rest of the crew decided they were too close to shore to fire the .460-caliber rifle they'd brought.

Around 9:30, the crew saw another whale. This one, about 40 feet long, surfaced and came to the two boats.

"It chose us," Johnson said.

Into the animal's flesh, crew members plunged at least five stainless-steel whaling harpoons and four seal harpoons 'so we wouldn't lose it," Johnson said. They then shot the whale with a gun powerful enough to fire a slug four miles . . . more

The gray whale, harpooned and shot many times, lies dead at the bottom of the ocean somewhere in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Five Makah tribal members accused of killing it have been arrested. Embarrassed tribal leaders have denounced the killing and sent representatives to Washington to assure the state’s politicians that the hunt was not approved.

Gov. Christine Gregoire added her condemnation.

Perhaps worst for the tribe, the hunt has complicated its quest to return to whaling, an effort the tribe has been waging in court for years . . . more

Critics against whale hunting are chiming in on the recent whaling incident involving the Makah tribe.

The incident comes at a time when the U.S. Whaling Commission is trying to crack down on countries for their whaling practices. Conservationists and animal rights activists say those countries are now watching the U.S. to see whether it enforces the laws it preaches.

A gray whale died Saturday night, several hours after Makah tribal members harpooned and shot the animal. The men shot the whale without federal permission.

The Makah Indian Tribe's whaling commission also did not authorize the killing of a gray whale, a member of the tribal panel said.

"The commission had not reviewed this," Chad Bowechop told the Peninsula Daily News in a story that appeared Sunday.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker confirmed the harpooning by five tribal members. The whale was one mile east of Neah Bay, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about a half-mile off shore

The Coast Guard detained the five tribal members and questioned them, said Mark Oswell, a National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman. They later were released to the tribe, who placed them into custody at the tribal jail, according to the mother of one of the five.

Kelly Slater is in the twilight of an extraordinary career as a competitive surfer, but he will not fade quietly into the sunset.

On the contrary. When he retires, after this season or next, he will endeavor to chase poachers on the high seas.

Slater, 35, revealed during an interview this week that, among other ventures, he'd like to work with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and its confrontational captain, Paul Watson.

"He's almost single-handedly saved tens of thousands of whales and probably hundreds of thousands of dolphins around the world," Slater said. "He's been busting people and they can do some pretty radical things at sea where, if you're doing something illegally, it's kind of open game on your boat." . . . more

United Nations - Galapagos Islands, the isolated Pacific archipelago whose wildlife inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, was declared an endangered world heritage site Tuesday after Ecuador admitted it could not properly protect the islands.

The UN's World Heritage Committee made the ruling as it also considers additions to its list of World Heritage Sites, one of which is expected to be Eastern Ontario's Rideau Canal today or Thursday.

In a letter to the UN's World Heritage Committee, Ecuador proposed an international conference to seek funds and technical help for preserving Galapagos, which earns the South American nation more than $200 million US a year in tourism income . . . more

After being stripped of registration papers and prohibited from sailing under the Canadian flag earlier this year, two of the world's best-known ocean warriors found a friendly port of call in the Mohawk community of Kahnawake today.

The Farley Mowat and the Robert Hunter two ocean-going vessels operated by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Authority, an international anti-whaling group will travel under a First Nations flag and with registration paper's signed by one of Kahnawake's three longhouses when they set sail for Antarctica later this year . . . more

Last month in Hollywood, US, independent filmmaker Bart Smithers walked away with the Brigitte Bardot award for best film or television production in the international category of the Genesis awards for environmental awareness journalism and media creation. The award-winning film "Hunters Become Hunted", which was flighted on SABC 2’s 50/50, documents the attempts of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to halt the Japanese whaling fleet from fishing illegally in the Antarctic during its 2005/6 campaign.

CASEY Council has celebrated its decision to become a friendship city to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and honorary homeport to its ship the Robert Hunter.

In front of an audience of 12 crew members and more than 60 members of local environmental groups, Casey mayor Colin Butler presented Captain Alex Cornelissen with a plaque commemorating the friendship city arrangement and a City of Casey flag to fly on the Robert Hunter.

We shouldn't fear the ocean's top predators, we should be afraid to live in a world without them.

In August 1999, I was a 19-year-old photographer on assignment to photograph sharks in the Galapagos Islands. Instead of filming the creatures in all their majesty, I wound up releasing dying sharks from illegally set long lines. These fishing lines -- with baited hooks -- can extend 80 to 90 kilometres in the ocean. The experience launched me on a journey to uncover why there was such a huge demand for sharks, even in the most protected national parks on earth.

The simple answer was the growing demand for shark fin soup. Through much of Asia, shark fin soup is a symbol of wealth and is served as a sign of respect. A single pound of shark fin can sell for more than $300 U.S. Shark bodies traditionally don't have substantial value, so fishermen in search of higher profits started finning: discarding the bodies and keeping only the fins, wasting 95 per cent of the animal . . . more

AUSTRALIANS are flocking to back a global campaign begging Japan to stop its brutal slaughter of dolphins and whales.

At the forefront of the push is a video circulating the internet that graphically portrays the inhumane killing of dolphins by the Japanese for meat and research, accompanied by a petition which has already attracted more than a million signatures.

Narrated by Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix, the disturbing film shows hundreds of dolphins being slaughtered in the Japanese port of Taiji.

In scenes reminiscent of the 'scientific" killing of whales by the Japanese which continues to cause waves of outrage around the world, the footage shows the endangered mammals being round up, hacked with knives and writhing to death on a bloody factory floor . . . more

JAPANESE fishermen have vowed to continue hunting dolphins despite outrage at the bloody slaughter of the marine mammals.

They have blasted photographs and videos released by environmentalist groups – including the US-based Sea Shepherd – as sensationalist.

The fisheries co-operative at Taiji in central Japan also claims that the footage on websites – narrated by actor Joaquin Phoenix – is old. Some, they say, was shot at Taiji in Wakayama province and Ito in Shizuoka Prefecture in the late 1990s, while the rest is decades old . . . more

VANCOUVER - Paul Watson, the controversial leader of the militant eco-group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, claims Ottawa is harassing him due to pressure from Japan -a major whaling nation.

In Vancouver late last week for a court appearance, the Canadian eco-warrior is charged with failing to comply with crewing and safety regulations on the 677-tonne Farley Mowat, one of the two ships Sea Shepherd uses to interrupt whaling operations.

That vessel was formerly classified as a Canadian-registered yacht, said Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd and captain of the ship.

"Last year when we went after the Japanese whaling fleet, Canada changed our status from yacht to commercial vessel, while we were out at sea, and then charged me with not having the proper papers for operating a commercial vessel," Watson said, adding that the Farley Mowat is not used for any commercial purposes.

"It's harassment, is all it is," Watson said, adding that he believes Ottawa acted because of pressure from Japan, and because of his opposition to the Canadian seal hunt. "We've got a lot of enemies in Ottawa," he added . . . more

After 20 years of watching movies for a living, a film critic can be forgiven for seeming a bit jaded. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

So there were few extra-sensory senses tingling when the call came to attend a press screening for a debut documentary called Sharkwater by a kid from Toronto named Rob Stewart. In fact, the only novelty tag attached to the project was Rob not Rod Stewart.

To be absolutely truthful, there was a reaction. "A movie about sharks? Shoot me now." Sharks aren't puppies. Sharks aren't even elephants. In the animal kingdom, their cuddle factor is right down there with certain spiders, some snakes and all slime eels.

Edging ever closer to the point of this story, I saw the film and it changed a little part of my life. Sharks are not evil. Sharks are not Jaws. Sharks are among the oldest creatures on our planet, doing what they've been doing for 400 million years in their sharky position at the top of the oceanic food chain.

And here's something I'd heard rumours about, but had never seen confirmed in such horrific detail. Sharks are endangered. Sharks are in jeopardy. In the 91 minutes it took to watch Stewart's movie, over 15,000 sharks had been caught, divested of their fins and thrown overboard to die . . . more

The Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru restarted its engines and departed the Ross Sea Sunday, 10 days after a fire disabled the ship and claimed the life of one crew member.

The Nisshin Maru is the mother ship of a whaling fleet run by the Institute of Cetacean Research, an organization based in Tokyo and affiliated with the Japanese government. Two other vessels of the fleet accompanied the Nisshin Maru northward.

The removal of the ship alleviated fears expressed by the New Zealand government that fuel oil or toxic chemicals would be spilled, contaminating one of the largest penguin colonies in the Antarctic . . . more

Captain Paul Watson knows he cannot claim credit for the event that may have prematurely ended Japan's seasonal whaling operations in Antarctica.

The environmental activist and Sea Shepherd boat skipper says he is happy that several hundred of the mammals have, for the time being, been spared because of a huge fire last week which crippled the Japanese whaling fleet's factory ship, the Nisshin Maru.

Of greater concern to Watson, however, is the potential for "a disaster beyond comprehension" to befall the pristine Antarctic environment.

The blaze left the Nisshin Maru, which was loaded with 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil, drifting without power in the Ross Sea, just 175km from Cape Adare and the world's largest Adelie penguin rookery.

"It's an environmental disaster waiting to happen," says Watson, founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) . . . more

FOR a couple of "pirates" who had just done battle with the Japanese whaling fleet, they were remarkably gentle and softly spoken.

And their mother waved jubilantly as their ship, its Jolly Roger ensign glaring from a side window, steamed into Melbourne's Docklands yesterday.

Tom and Ben Baldwin, 26 and 23, of Sandringham, had just spent two months on the Farley Mowat, the flagship of the militant anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Society.

Ben, an engineer and the ship's illustrator, and Tom, a Zodiac (12-man inflatable) vessel operator, had volunteered to serve last August and completed their first Sea Shepherd campaign.

The group has claimed victory in its fight against Japanese whalers near Antarctica after the Japanese fleet was forced to halt its mission due to a fire on its factory ship, the Nisshin Maru . . . more

Forensic investigators from Australian Federal Police (AFP) are examining an anti-whaling vessel moored in Melbourne after it collided with a Japanese ship in Antarctic waters.

Last week, the Robert Hunter collided with whale-spotting ship Kaiko Maru as it attempted to scupper Japan's operations in the Ross Sea.

Both sides later accused each other of ramming their vessel and the AFP is now trying to establish who did what to which.

AFP officers have spent the morning poring over the protest ship and examining damage to the hull of the Robert Hunter, the former Scottish fisheries patrol vessel now owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS).

"They're assessing the damage to our hull to try to determine exactly who rammed who," SSCS president and skipper Paul Watson said.

"Our position simply is that if we had rammed the Kaiko Maru, then we would admit to ramming the damn thing. We have no problem with that."

"On this occasion, though, it was the Japanese ship that deliberately targeted us." . . . more

A former Kaikoura marine biologist and author says attacks on a Japanese whaling fleet by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, are long overdue.

George Muller says Japan has only itself to blame for the recent incident at sea when the Sea Shepherd's vessel the Robert Hunter and the Japanese whaling ship the Kaiko Maru collided in the freezing Antarctic waters.

Each vessel has footage of the collision which caused the boats minimal damage but it is unclear which initiated the ramming.

Kaikoura woman Jaime Brown is aboard the vessel's sister ship, the Farley Mowat, and the anti-whaling group headed for Australia last Thursday after their fuel reserves started running low. The vessels had been in the icy waters for seven weeks.

Miss Brown was looking back to getting back to Kaikoura and hoped the society's actions over the past few weeks have shone some light on the atrocities and injustices that are occurring in the Southern Ocean . . . more

She was a strange sight among the seamen on the deck of a Japanese whale-spotting ship in the Antarctic: a woman with a video camera. Over the hour or two that her ship was under attack from Sea Shepherd, the young woman raced around the deck recording the assault.

Thanks to her, we can see some activists hurl aboard smoke bombs, and others in dinghies carrying the nets and rope that eventually snarl the propeller of the Kaiko Maru in sea ice south-east of Australia.

We glimpse her just after she has shouted, in alarmed English, "Warning! warning!", and the bigger grey Sea Shepherd ship, Robert Hunter, crunches into the side of the Kaiko Maru — so hard that its deck tilts . . . more

Officials warned of a potential environmental disaster in Antarctica after fire erupted Thursday on a Japanese whaling ship, as the search continued for a missing crewmen from the crippled ship.

Japanese officials said the blaze that broke out in the below-decks area of the 8,000-ton Nisshin Maru where whale carcasses are processed had been brought under control.

Most of the vessel's 148-member crew were evacuated Thursday to three other ships in the are that also belong to the Japanese whaling fleet, said Hideki Moronuki, an official with the Japan Fisheries Agency . . . more

Anti-whaling ships continue to chase Japanese whaling vessels in Antarctic waters just days after dangerous collisions in high seas as Japan hosts meetings in another hemisphere to discuss the possible resumption of commercial whaling.

“"One of our tactics is keeping them on the run," said Sea Shepherd International Director Jonny Vasic from aboard the vessel the Farley Mowat. "When they are on the run they are not able to track the whales, so that is the goal."

In the last several days Sea Shepherd applied other, riskier tactics to prevent the Japanese ships from killing whales.

“"If we see them going after a whale, we will not let them kill it," said Vasic. "It’s no different than taking a gun from a bank robber or stopping an ivory smuggler that is butchering elephants.". . . more

Sea Shepherd activists have clashed repeatedly with Japanese whalers in icy waters and dropped threats to ram a boat into the Japanese fleet only after intervention by New Zealand.

"We can wait for Japanese opinion to change, but by that time there won't be any whales left," Captain Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd, told AFP by satellite phone in Antarctic waters . . . more

As Japanese whalers faced off against protesters in Antarctic waters, Japan was set to host an international conference this week to push its bid to resume commercial whaling.

Japan has invited all 72 members of the International Whaling Commission to a conference running Tuesday through Thursday that it says is needed to reform a body that, it argues, is meant to regulate hunts rather than ban them outright.

Pro-whaling nations, which also include Norway and Iceland, have complained that the IWC has become an organization devoted to preventing whaling hunts.

Critics say the conference appears aimed at promoting a resumption of commercial whaling rather than the commission's reform . . . more

An American-based conservation society patrolling the waters of the Ross Sea off of Antarctica is offering a $25,000 reward for the coordinates of Japanese whaling ships.

The Sea Shepherd Society announced the reward during its Operation Leviathan mission to stop illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean. Two Sea Shepherd ships, the Farley Mowat and the Robert Hunter, are in the Antarctic with 70 volunteers from 14 countries. They believe they are within 500 miles of the Japanese whaling fleet.

The reward comes days after Japan called a special meeting of members of the International Whaling Commission next month to help lift a global moratorium on hunting whales. Several countries opposed to whaling have said they may boycott the assembly.

Capt. Alex Cornelissen believes the Japanese are using satellite technology to evade them. In an interview over satellite phone from the Ross Sea aboard the Robert Hunter, Cornelissen told ABC News that they know the Japanese bought a $150,000 ship-tracking program that allows them to monitor the Sea Shepherd ships, putting the conservation effort at a severe disadvantage . . . more

An anti-whaling group patrolling the Ross Sea off Antarctica has offered a $25,000 reward to any person or group that can provide coordinates of the Japanese whaling fleet operating in the area.

The U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society announced the reward in the midst of its Operation Leviathan mission to disrupt Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.

"We're here to stop them from killing whales and we will do all we can without risking human lives to do that," said Captain Alex Cornelissen from the ship Robert Hunter, one of two Sea Shepherd ships involved in the anti-whaling campaign.

"We're waiting for more information about the coordinates of the Japanese fleet to track them down, and hope the reward will help deliver that news soon," Cornelissen told Reuters on Monday via satellite telephone from his ship . . . more

I am again disappointed that an Australian government minister, Ian Campbell, would take the view that the Sea Shepherd is using foolhardy tactics to try to save whales in the Southern Ocean. Violence in the Southern Ocean is instigated by Japanese whalers. Can someone please explain to me why these magnificent creatures have to die in such a horrific way -- first by being harpooned then by having a grenade go off inside their bodies and, while still alive, being hauled tail-first (drowning) onto a whaling ship. Great whales are dying in abject agony from the merciless harpoons of the Japanese whalers.

Yes, the Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat is a pirate ship. Her flag was struck by the nation of Belize. This marks the 30th year that Sea Shepherd has been fighting to save whales and prevent illegal fishing in the world's oceans. Not one Sea Shepherd activist been convicted of any felony crime . . . more

Brussels - If SSCS activists continue to interrupt, the Japanese whalers threaten to attack the organisation's flagship. On board there are two young compatriots.

Stijn Bruers from Herentals and Johan Van Frausum from Duffel, both 25, left late November on the Farley Mowat, action ship owned by environmental organisation Sea Shepherd, to stop the Japanese whalers in Antarctica.

But the hunt for the whalers seems to turn into a war on high seas.

The Sea Shepherd ship sailed under Canadian flag for years but Canada ended the registration at the end of last year. Under Japanese pressure, Sea Shepherd claims. According to Keiicki Nakajima from the Japanese whaling association Sea Shepherd now 'sails with a pirate vessel and the ship must be confiscated and the crew arrested" . . . more

His ship is fitted with a battering ram which could slice the hull of a whaler - and conservationist Paul Watson, president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, said he is quite prepared to use it.

Encounters between whalers and activists could turn violent. In an interview from aboard his flagship, the Farley Mowatt, Watson, 56, said he would take any measures to prevent the Japanese fleet from going about their gruesome expedition in the Antarctic, including ramming their ships.

"Above the waterline, you know there's enough damage to force them back to port. Last year I sideswiped the Oriental Bluebird supply vessel and drove them out of the area". . . more

Despite some delays, Jaime Brown is well on her way to stop the slaughter of whales in Antarctica.

The Kaikoura marine guide is on board the vessel Farley Mowat as part of the international conservation group Sea Shepherd's operation to stop Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary.

The group is taking two ships and one helicopter to the chilly waters and planned to be well on their way by December but a long delay in Melbourne meant they were only able to leave last week.

They were waiting for parts to arrive for their helicopter and during the wait, the Japanese started the culling.

More than 50 volunteers were on board, including three New Zealanders, and Miss Brown said during the past week the crew had been working around the clock in preparation for the challenge which will face them "any day now".

Sea Shepherd plan to hunt down and intercept the Japanese whaling boats and then block, obstruct, and intervene in whaling practices. . . more

Anti-whaling protesters are closing in on the waters around Antarctica, promising to take forceful action - including possibly damaging ships - to prevent Japanese whalers from carrying out their hunt.

Ships from conservation groups Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are heading for the Southern ocean, braced for clashes with the Japanese fleet.

Sea Shepherd, which has a reputation for taking forceful action, says it has equipped its main ship with a battering ram which it hopes to use to cripple Japanese whalers . . . more

The Farley Mowat, flagship of the anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society that illegally slipped out of Cape Town in June, is officially a pirate ship.

The vessel's "flag of convenience" registration in the tiny Central American state of Belize was cancelled hours after it cleared customs in Hobart, Tasmania, and set sail for the Southern Ocean, where it again confronted Japanese ships hunting whales in the area in defiance of the International Whaling Commission.

He said the voyage would go on and he was happy to be associated with "honourable and noble pirates like Sir Francis Drake, John Paul Jones, and Jean La Fitte".

"If they want us to be pirates, then we will be, but we will not abandon whales to the agony and misery of the harpoons without a fight," said Watson. "We are pirates of compassion in pursuit of pirates of profit" . . . more

ANTI-WHALING forces closing in on the Antarctic are setting up the most determined attempt yet to halt the Japanese fleet.

The activists from the group Sea Shepherd said their two ship navy, which aims to disable the whaling vessels, would reach Antarctic waters and begin to hunt for the fleet in about a week.

Engineers have fitted a solid steel hydraulic ram with a bulldozer-strength blade to the Sea Shepherd's flagship, Farley Mowat, which has been stripped of its registration in Belize and could now be considered a pirate vessel under international law . . . more

Byron Entertainment Centre is proud to announce the inception of Surfers Save The Ocean, an annual event created to raise funds and appreciation for the conservation of the ocean environment and its inhabitants. The inaugural event is to take place on Saturday 17th March and will feature a wealth of musical, performance and artistic talent from around Australia. The primary aim of the event in its first year is to develop a greater awareness within the surfing community of the admirable work of Sea Shepherd and its founder, Paul Watson, with all proceeds also being donated to the cause . . . more

FOR years the hardline anti-whaling activists of Sea Shepherd have played the buccaneer, to the point of carrying a brass cannon and painting their version of the skull and crossbones on the black flagship, Farley Mowat.

Now as they sail into the Southern Ocean with the means to confront and damage the Japanese whaling fleet their leader, Paul Watson, has admitted that for the first time they may truly be regarded as pirates.

After struggling with authorities in six countries over the ship's papers, Farley Mowat has been stripped of its latest flag, from Belize, only hours after Captain Watson decided it was time to get out of Australia.

According to a maritime law specialist this in effect makes the converted fisheries research vessel a pirate ship . . . more

A HIGH-speed vessel capable of keeping pace with the Japanese whaling fleet is the secret weapon in the arsenal of anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd. Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd's flagship yacht, Farley Mowat, said the new vessel would soon meet his yacht in the Southern Ocean for a month-long campaign against the Japanese whalers.

Sea Shepherd's president, Paul Watson, told the Herald yesterday that he had no intention of endangering life. Sea Shepherd activists have sunk 10 whaling vessels in the North Atlantic since 1979. Last summer it tried to foul the propellers of the whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru, the vessel it will soon be chasing . . . more

A HIGH-speed vessel capable of keeping pace with the Japanese whaling fleet is the secret weapon in the arsenal of anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd. Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd's flagship yacht, Farley Mowat, said the new vessel would soon meet his yacht in the Southern Ocean for a month-long campaign against the Japanese whalers.

"I think (this summer) will be more successful than last year because we couldn't keep up with the Japanese ships," he said.

"We now have a vessel that can match their speed, so that's what will be different this year."

Mr Watson said the type of vessel and its name would not be revealed until the two ships met in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, where the Japanese are expected to be whaling . . . more

WHILE Winnipeggers slogged through snow and carved their Christmas turkeys, Wolseley resident David Nickarz was trying to save the whales in the south Antarctic Ocean.

Nickarz is part of the crew of the Farley Mowat, a ship that is part of the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Society, an animal-rights organization that left Australia on Friday bound for the Antarctic . . . more

Japan's controversial whaling fleet has arrived in the Southern Ocean, around Antarctica, and anti-whaling activists are promising to ram and sink any vessels attempting to kill whales.

"What the Japanese whalers are doing is illegal under the United Nations World Charter for Nature," said Paul Watson founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

"It's also murder in my personal opinion," Watson told Tierramérica from Melbourne, Australia, where his ship, the Farley Mowat, was docked.

Watson has claimed to have sunk 10 whaling vessels over the past 20 years. In the next few days the Farley Mowat and another Sea Shepherd vessel will use a helicopter and ultra-lite aircraft to locate and attempt to stop the Japanese hunters from killing whales . . . more

Instead, the Sausalito resident had dreams of creating a school for sacred living that helps people connect better with themselves, others and the Earth.

But when a friend convinced her that the unique hemp- and organic cotton-based clothing she made for herself could become a huge businesss and help fund her vision, Stone's eyes were opened.

"I want to reach a larger audience and do something for the planet," says Stone, 44, who plans to donate 3 to 5 percent of sales to such nonprofits as Bluewater Network, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Leopards, Etc. "Planetary environmental issues have been a really big deal for me and close to my heart." . . . more

Japanese whalers are expected to clash with environmentalists in Antarctica over the next two months as separate fleets head south prepared to confront each other in some of the world's most hostile seas. Yesterday the Japanese government's Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR), which is paying for this year's hunt for 950 whales, said five ships were now en route for Antarctica . . . more

Iceland's decision to resume commercial whaling has made it an international pariah - and blown a 20-year moratorium on hunting out of the water. But since no one actually wants to eat whale, why are the harpoonists heading out again? John Vidal reports . . . more

The Japanese whaling fleet is leaving for the Antarctic under closer control of its Government, in a toughening of its stance ahead of this summer's battle with environmentalists.

The factory ship Nisshin Maru and three chasers are due to leave Shimonoseki in southern Japan later today on an expedition to kill up to 935 minke whales and 10 fins, environmentalists said.

They sail south for the first time after the fleet's holding company, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, was shifted from Japanese fishing corporations to the Government's Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR).

The move is said to emphasise Tokyo's commitment to whaling, and might mean a harder line against Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace in what is shaping as the fiercest contest yet between their forces . . . more

. . . Jonny Vasic is the International Director of Sea Shepherd, an environmental group more radical than Greenpeace, in that members are prepared to enforce international environmental law themselves, ramming and sometimes sink9nig boats involved in illegal fishing activity. Jonny is visiting Australia drumming up support for the Antarctica Campaign against Japanese Whalers illegally killing whales in the Southern Marine Sanctuary and in Australian Territorial Waters.

When Sea Shepherd is actively involved in action against whalers or illegal fishing vessels, Jonny insists that no one is every hurt. "We're direct action... as far as this campaign, we can't discuss tactics, but we'll do whatever we can to stop them... We'll harass, we'll put ourselves between the whale and the harpoon if need be. Last year we rammed the Oriental... we don't ram to sink a ship and no one in the 30 year history has been hurt... so a lot of it's intimidation, because they know we mean business." . . . more

GOLD Coast tourists are being asked to help fund a new anti-whaling vessel to fight Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean.

The fledgling Gold Coast Whale Watch and Conservation Association has formed an alliance with the militant US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which clashed fiercely with Japanese whalers last summer.

The association – an industry watchdog comprising the Gold Coast's leading whale watching operators – is organising a Whale Protection Day on September 30 to boost the society's coffers.

The society is buying a $3.2 million ship to escort its existing vessel, the Farley Mowat, on an anti-whaling mission in the Southern Ocean on December 1 as the protest against Japanese whalers again threatens to turn violent . . . more

It looks like the fish are turning the tables on humanity. Not by choice but because ecological realities have boomeranged back upon humankind.

Tins of tuna fish now contain warnings that the product should not be eaten by pregnant women or young children because of high levels of mercury and other toxic heavy metals.

Farm raised salmon in North America contain antibiotics, growth hormones and even a dye to colour the flesh a pleasing pink while still alive.

Long-living fish like halibut, cod, orange roughy and swordfish contain large amounts of heavy metals. When you can live over a century like a halibut, you accumulate decades of toxins. When you live high up on the food chain, you build up mercury and other heavy metals. . . more

The Prince Rupert SPCA has found itself in hot water over a proposed fund-raising event that would involve boiling live crabs.

A group of SPCA volunteers has organized a crab cookoff on Aug. 27 in Prince Rupert's Mariner's Park. For $$10, visitors may eat their crab at the park or have it cooked to take home...

...But the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is asking animal lovers around the world to sign a petition protesting the event, saying it's wrong for an animal-welfare organization to kill one kind of animal to help another.. . more

Horst Kleinschmidt, former deputy chairman of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), has joined the radical Sea Shepherd Conservation Society which rammed Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic waters this summer.

Kleinschmidt, a former deputy director-general at the Department of Environment and highly respected locally and internationally, acknowledged yesterday that his move was likely to be controversial because of the organisation's militant stance.

"But I have done my checking on the organisation and I think they have got a bad name which is not deserved. They are not a violent organisation. I don't suport violence," Kleinschmidt said yesterday... . more

Horst Kleinschmidt, South Africa's former commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and who was set to become its next chairman, has joined the militant Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The strongly anti-whaling society was founded in 1977 by controversial sailor and environmentalist Captain Paul Watson, who still heads it... . more

Costco's decision to restock seal oil capsules will spark an international backlash, an anti-sealing organization says.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – which credited its lobbying efforts with the company's original decision to pull the capsules – said it will now focus its efforts on hurting the big-box retailer's bottom line.

Costco announced Wednesday it would restock its St. John's shelves with the capsules, in response to strong consumer response in Newfoundland and Labrador.The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – which credited its lobbying efforts with the company's original decision to pull the capsules – said it will now focus its efforts on hurting the big-box retailer's bottom line.. . more

Pamela Anderson, Brigitte Bardot and Sir Paul McCartney have made headlines in recent weeks speaking out against Canada’s seal hunt – but they are not the only celebrities who have been vocal with their complaints.

Since the 1970s, a string of stars have tried to stop the annual cull by protesting one way or another the slaughter of seals, who are undeniably much more cute than pigs.

Some are A-listers (Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger and Sean Penn) but most are further down in the alphabet of fame (hello, Ed Begley Jr. and Loretta Swit).

According to various animal rights groups, the list of celebrities opposed to Canada’s annual slaughter – this year 325,000 of an estimated 5.8 million seals will be killed – is a long one.. . more

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says Costco is not being truthful about the “major role” the anti-sealing organization played in the company’s recent decision to pull seal-oil capsules off its shelves.

News of the product removal was first reported on Sea Shepherd’s website Thursday, where it stated the decision had been made as a result of discussions between Costco and Sea Shepherd.

The company has since denied any affiliation with Sea Shepherd and has distanced itself from the animal rights issue, saying the move was a simple business decision.

Stephen Thompson, who has been dealing with Costco on behalf of Sea Shepherd since 2004, says that’s a load of hooey — and contends he has reams of e-mails, letters and even telephone bills, that show the extensive dialogue that took place between the two organizations about the seal capsule issue over the last number of months and even years.. . more

Before Pamela Anderson staged press conferences to demand clemency for chickens, and vigilante protesters lobbed buckets of red paint at well-heeled fur-clad women, there was French film actress Brigitte Bardot. Called “the Princess of Pout” by Time Magazine, the 1960s sex kitten starlet created a public furor that led to a permanent ban on the hunt for white coats after images of her cajoling baby harp seals on the Canadian ice floes were published in the 1970s. Bardot was back in Canada yesterday, failing to secure an impromptu audience with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Instead, she had to settle for a press conference on the 27th floor of an Ottawa hotel. Flanked by a fiery Paul Watson, a co-founder of Greenpeace and the man who first brought her to Canada so many years ago, Bardot dabbed her teary eyes as she demanded that the Canadian government stop “the massacre.” Meanwhile, on the streets below, Inuit youth protested with placards with slogans like “Protect Inuit Culture.” Of all the public crusades that occur in Canada on an annual basis, none garner as much attention or possess the degree of emotional wattage as the East Coast seal hunt... . more

She still puts on a great performance. Actress-turned activist Brigitte Bardot, France's celebrated 'sex kitten," addressed a packed news conference yesterday to appeal for an end to the Canadian seal hunt, tears streaming from her eyes, her hands covering her face as video images of dying seals played behind her. She insisted she couldn't watch.

"Before I die, I want to see this massacre ended," she said.

Ms. Bardot, now 71, hobbled in on crutches, having made the journey from Paris the night before despite poor health. It was her first visit to Canada in nearly three decades and she had hoped to meet with Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, and Loyola Hearn, the Minister of Fisheries. Both declined. Mr. Harper said he does not make a habit of posing with celebrities.. . more

In the three decades since French animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot hugged seal pups on the Maritime ice floes, the controversy over Canada's annual seal hunt hasn't gone away. This year, former Beatle Sir Paul Mc Cartney and his wife Heather were the latest in a long line of celebrities to visit the east coast and speak out against the centuries-old hunt that kills about 300,000 of the young seals each year.

The McCartneys, who had a verbal spat over the hunt with Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams on the Larry King Show last week, have since posted an appeal on the Humane Society of the United States" (HSUS) website asking for donations to help HSUS "continue to fight to save Canada's baby seals.".. . more

Department of Fisheries and Oceans officials are saying it's possible a lack of ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence will lead to the cancellation of this year's harp seal hunt.

The hunt usually begins in mid- to late-March, but ice conditions are poor.

The ice is still forming in the Gulf. The minister hasn't made a public announcement yet in terms of this year's hunt and the conditions under which it will take place, if it takes place, says Frank Ring, DFO's regional manager for special projects for the Gulf region.. . more

They've roamed the high seas, making life impossible for whaling ships, but the last thing the men on the Farley Mowat expected was to have their vessel detained in Cape Town. Melanie Peters spoke to its controversial captain.

As a freshly harpooned whale breached, environmental activist Paul Watson thought the panic-stricken mammal was about to slam down on his small boat, killing him and his crew.

But, instead, the whale slowly slid into the bloody water and gave him a look he would never forget... . more

Clashes at sea with two environmental groups will not bring Japan's whaling programme to a halt but could reduce the size of the catch, a senior official at the Fisheries Ministry said on Thursday.

The confrontations with Greenpeace and the more militant group Sea Shepherd, which have led to at least two collisions in remote Antarctic waters in recent weeks, could mean Japan catches fewer whales than it had planned for the season, Hideki Moronuki, head of the whaling section at the ministry, said.

Two Greenpeace ships set off from Cape Town in November to pursue and disrupt the Japanese whalers, sometimes deploying inflatable boats between the whales and harpoon guns.

Sea Shepherd has also been pursuing the whaling fleet.

"If the harassment continues there may be some effect," Moronuki said.. . more

JAPAN will consider scrambling police aircraft to the Antarctic to defend its whaling fleet and may ask Australia to act against Greenpeace, as anti-whaling protests intensify in the Southern Ocean.

"If Greenpeace action becomes more aggressive, the Fisheries Agency may ask the Maritime Police Agency to dispatch aircraft," the deputy director of the Far Seas Fisheries Division of Japan's Fisheries Agency, Mr Hideki Moronuki told the Herald yesterday. "Or the agency may ask the Government of Australia to take action to normalise the situation."

Japanese alarm is rising over the scale of protests following an attempt by the group Sea Shepherd to disable the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru after it collided with the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise on Sunday.. . more

The Farley Mowat is in the south Indian Ocean pursuing a fleet of Japanese whaling vessels in an attempt to enforce international whaling laws.

The Farley Mowat is the flagship of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is based in Friday Harbor. The ship and its 40-member crew left Melbourne, Australia on Dec. 8 to intervene in the Japanese whaling fleet's hunt in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary established in 1938 by the International Whaling Commission.

Since the Farley Mowat first encountered the whaling fleet Dec. 21, it has interrupted whaling operations three times. The campaign has been reported by media in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan, Sea Shepherd office manager Heather Callin said.. . more

January 5, 2006 -- The New York Times - United States online/print news

MANTA, Ecuador - Early every morning, the cold water lapping up on the beach here is stained red with blood as surly, determined men in ragged T-shirts drag hundreds of shark carcasses off wooden skiffs and onto the white sand.

Sharks on the beach at Manta, Ecuador, where fishing kills thousands each year for export. In Asia the fins sell for up to $700 per kilogram. Biologists say the trade is killing off the species and threatening ecosystems.

Using eight-inch boning knives with quick precision, they dismember the once-mighty predators, cutting off heads, carving up big slabs of meat, slashing off the tails. Most important, they cut off the fins - dorsal and pectorals - a set that can fetch $100 or more.

That is what is really important, the fins, said Luis Salto, 57, as he cut up sharks. They sell in China.. . more

2005 and earlier Archive

Japan's annual slaughter of thousands of dolphins began Oct. 8 in the traditional whaling town of Taiji on the Kii Peninsula of Honshu's Wakayama Prefecture. These drive fisheries triggered demonstrations, held under the Japan Dolphin Day banner, in 28 countries. The protests went almost entirely unreported in Japan, where only very few people are aware of what goes on.

The culling, spanning a period of six months, is officially condoned as part of traditional culture, and is described as pest control by practitioners. However, it is the inhumane way in which the mammals are killed, by stabbing and spearing them, that especially provokes such widespread revulsion.. . more

Montrealer Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon visualized the Galapagos Islands as lands far away where animals roam in their own utopia out of human reach.

But then she saw the place.

As a volunteer deckhand and communications officer on the Farley Mowat since mid-June, a ship operated by famed Canadian environmentalist Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd organization, the 22-year-old plays a minor role in maintaining the unique ecological treasure made famous by Charles Darwin.

Last week, as her ship battled 50-degree rolls, Ferretti-Gallon sent an e-mail over a satellite phone connection about creeping urbanization on one of the planet’s most celebrated natural treasures.. . more

Yet another blow has hit B.C.'s beleaguered tourism and fishing industries. The 9.5 million-member Humane Society of the United States recently called on Americans to boycott Canadian seafood until this country permanently halts the annual East Coast seal hunt.

Wilson Salukazana, the official whale crier for the South African coastal town of Hermanus, blew four short bursts on his kelp horn to announce a pod of southern right whales surfacing 30 meters (98 feet) from the shore. . .

. . . The whale-watching industry is helping fuel a boom in South African tourism, which accounted for 7.4 percent of the country's gross domestic product in 2004. A record 6.7 million visitors spent a total of 47.8 billion rand ($7.5 billion) on lodging, food and safaris, according to South African Tourism, the government's official promotion agency. more

October 7, 2005 -- Environment News Service - United States online news

SAN FRANCISCO, California, October 7, 2005 (ENS) - Joined by America's Whale Alliance's 35-foot Whale Bus, members of In Defense of Animals, the International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute and One Voice - France held a protest in front of the Japanese Consulate in San Francisco today. The activists want to draw attention to the annual killing of thousands of dolphins in Taiji and other bays in Japan.

The demonstration is part of a day of international protest October 8 against Japan's slaughter of over 23,000 dolphins and small whales each year, the largest kill of dolphins anywhere in the world.

Forty-four demonstrations are being held at Japanese embassies and consulates in 26 countries. Activists are demanding a permanent end to the drive fisheries and the preservation of dolphins and whales as natural treasures. more

"Canada’s department of fisheries and oceans is the most mismanaged and incompetent government department to date." This statement was made by Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS), at a recent lecture given at the University of Winnipeg. Watson appears to be easily justified in his remarks, given the rapidly decreasing supply of cod, salmon and other species of fish over the past two decades due to over fishing. Although some (lenient) restrictions were placed on the numbers of fish that could be caught, they have not been properly enforced. And, according to scientists, these depleting fish species may never be able to repopulate... more

"Every time you take the blue box to the corner, you get a warm, fuzzy feeling that stems from doing your own little part in saving the world.

Of course, you're merely saving an empty vodka bottle, a Cap'n Crunch box and last week's TV Times from winding up in a landfill.

Everything you do to lessen your impact on the planet is important, but let's face it -- reusing a towel at the Holiday Inn Express is not exactly an heroic act.

None of your enviro-positive lifestyle choices are particularly exciting, unless you have a thing for the plastic wrap your wife uses to seal the windows every winter.

In the battle to save the planet, Hollywood-style action heroes are rare, which is why people like Paul Watson are so intriguing.

The 54-year-old founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in town today to speak at the University of Winnipeg (2 p.m., $5 at the door), is like an ocean-going, seal-cuddling Robin Hood. He's spent his career ramming whaling ships, scaring off poachers and cutting driftnets in an effort to protect all manner of sea creatures, sometimes provoking a violent response from his usually criminal targets. ... more

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society talks about his recent arrest for interfering with the annual seal hunt in Newfoundland during an interview at the Rotary Centre for the Arts on Wednesday. Watson gave a public lecture at the Mary Irwin Theatre later in the day.

He may be 54, but Paul Watson has lost none of his fervour as poster boy of Canada's protest against the annual seal hunt.

The spokesman for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society spoke to a Kelowna audience Wednesday night about its opposition to the Newfoundland seal hunt as part of his cross-Canada tour.

It's the largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world, killing an average 350,000 seals every year, Watson said in an interview. ... more

TORONTO — Outspoken, passionate, pugnacious and prolific. These are just some of the words attached to Canadian author Farley Mowat. But this week in his hometown, the word being uttered most often by fellow residents is simple -- "ours."

Port Hope, a small, picturesque community on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, is honouring its favourite adopted son with Port Hope Reads Farley Week -- a festival of events to pay homage to the man and the 39 books that have brought Canada and Canadians to readers around the world.. . more

Nearly 100,000 baby seals have been clubbed and shot in the past few weeks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the first part of the annual commercial hunt that will harvest some 319,000 harp seals (Phoca groenlandica), named for the harp-shaped pattern on the backs of the adults.. . more

Captain Paul Watson, Director of the Sea Shepard Conservancy, and his volunteer crew aboard the Farley Mowat have finally sailed out of the ice fields in the Gulf of St. Lawrence after bearing witness to the Canadian seal pup slaughter there.

Sealers were permitted to kill 90,000 seals this year . While Captain Watson estimates that the actual kill this year was far below the quota, the Associated Press reports, The total allowable catch remaining for 2005 is nearly 320,000 The 3-year harvest which ends this spring allowed the killing of nearly one million seals. more

ON THE ice floes of Canada’s northeast coast more than a thousand hunters have embarked on the biggest and bloodiest seal hunt of modern times — a grisly annual ritual that has provoked an outcry from environmentalists the world over. more

CHARLOTTETOWN -- The annual seal hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has opened against a backdrop of treacherous conditions on the ice floes and renewed tensions between sealers and international protesters. About 70 sealing vessels headed to the Gulf yesterday, where an estimated 90,000 harp seals will be slaughtered for their skins and oil-rich blubber by the end of the week. more

The Farley Mowat, the protest vessel that is taking on water off Nova Scotia, does not appear to be in serious danger.

Pumps on the 54-metre Mowat are keeping pace with a leak and a coast guard ship is expected to meet the vessel this afternoon, said Lieut. Pat Jessup from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax. more

The Special End of the Year issue of the revolutionary magazine Adbusters features a one-page profile on Captain Paul Watson. On the opposite page is a profile of Sea Shepherd Advisory Board member Dave Foreman. Both profiles were written by Nicholas Klassen. For more information about Adbusters visit www.adbusters.org

Good Dirt Radio interviewed Captain Watson, Sea Shepherd International Chairman Farley Mowat and crewmember Alex Cornelissen for this show and describes the show as follows: “Historically, mankind has drawn measured sustenance from the sea but modern corporate, floating fish factories and other high-tech, indiscriminate fishing machines are irreparably damaging our oceans and marine life. Research has shown that virtually every commercial fishery in the world is in a state of collapse and that our oceans are in great distress. Find out how the Sea Shepherds are protecting creatures of the sea and raising awareness about our inter-connection with the oceans.” For more information on Good Dirt Radio visit www.gooddirtradio.org

Andrea Gordon, writing an article for The American Jurist (which is an editorially independent student publication of the Washington College of Law at American University, Washington, DC, USA), discusses the problems of enforcing and regulating of laws in international waters and says, “Hands down, Sea Shepherd's record beats almost any government land or sea law enforcement agency.”

You can register for free to access the article on SSCS called 21st Century Pirates.

October 8, 2001 -- Alma College Interview on NPR radio interview

Alternative Radio interview featuring Captain Paul Watson(wma format)

Recorded at a lecture that Paul Watson gave at Alma College, in Alma, Michigan, on October 8, 2001, this interview was recently replayed on NPR (National Public Radio).

Alternative Radio is a weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and on short-wave on Radio for Peace International. For more information on Alternative Radio or if you would like to order a copy of this interview please visit: Alternative Radio